“As the protagonist of his own films, Dutch video and performance artist Guido van der Werve makes great physical demands upon himself. His works chart approaches to the experience of self and the world by staging an existentialist competition with himself. However, he not only documents the realisation of the conceived events; this documentation is also taken as a starting point from which to condense them into complex narratives about physical endurance, struggling with (one’s own) nature, the passage of time, and the uncontrollable dynamics of chance. Van der Werve, who has also completed training as a classical pianist, often anchors his narratives structurally by reference to the biographies of composers such as Rachmaninov or Chopin, as well as using his own musical compositions. In this way he produces works that measure spatial and temporal determinants by means of physical effort, yet also bear witness to a deep melancholy and the need to come to terms with isolation.”
Sequences of stills from the artist’s video works take the reader is through various performances which often involve the artists himself in confrontation with his surroundings, with texts by András Pálffy, Hans Ree, and Guido van der Werve, and interviews with GvdW conducted by Xander Karskens and Angela Serino.
Hard cover, cloth-bound, 23 x 26 cm, 246 pages, Berlin 2013
ISBN: 978-3-86895-312-1
